We are geeks

Here are the top 5 best geek toys I bought in 2008.

1. Iphone. If you don't have this device yet, you need it. It will change your life. You will become hopelessly addicted to the ability to be in touch all the time. You will lie in bed at night quietly tapping the screen and surfing the web while desperately trying not to wake up your wife.
You will roll over as you wake up in the morning, and make a half-eyed reach in the dark for your phone. Yes, its that bad.

2. Apple TV. Simply put, brilliant. Stream your entire music library to your living room. No more CD's or CD cases laying around. Download HD movies, view your all your photos (from your flickr account) directly on your big screen TV. We love this thing, and use it all the time. It looks nice too.

3. 42" Toshiba HDTV. Need I say more? Sweeeeet.

4. Tamron 17-35 F2.8 wide angle lens. Take my word for it, this lens takes pictures so sharp its ridiculous. I love it - the F2.8 part is pretty nice too.

5. Flickr Pro account. Ok, so this was $24.95 per year. But, you get unlimited uploads, and anyone can view our photos online any where at anytime and download them to their hearts content. The interface is fun, and easy to use. If you are looking for a service like this, I highly recommend it.

Special mention goes to: Facebook.
While being completely free, I am amazed at how this little application has taken off. Its so much better that Myspace because, well, Myspace sucked.
For those of you who have it, you know you are addicted. Come on, admit it.

I am such a geek.

Sean.

Avalanche

I spent the past weekend at a camp with 150 middle schooler's from LCBC. To say I had a great time would be an understatement. It felt really refreshing to just get out of town for a few days, and hang around with some good friends. Getting to play some bangin' rock and roll worship didn't hurt either. I am amazed at the energy of middle schooler's. Its either full speed go, or a full stop - with nothing in between.

I took the trusty Canon 30D with me and snapped some candid shots of us spending some time backstage. I love that camera, almost as much as my guitar, Susan. After using it for a while now, it just feels like an extension of my eye - I just look, focus and push the button. Snap, there you have it.

Oh well, there's not much else going on these days. I can't believe its almost February.

You can check out the photos from the camp here

Not your fault

As I turned into the last corner on my long trip home tonight, my ear caught these words from a commercial playing over the car radio. It went something like this: "Are you in more than ten thousand dollars worth of debt? Do your credit cards have you locked down? Are you tired of calls from collectors? We'll it's not your fault."
"What?" I thought, as I felt for the button on the garage door opener. How is being in debt way over your own head, not your own fault?" I turned the car off, and left the radio on, determined to listen a little closer. In what can only be described as some brilliant Americanized marketing, the voice I was now hearing went on to explain to me that credit card companies have devised a scheme to "keep you in debt" because "that's how they make their money."
Wait a minute. If I spent over $10,000 dollars of someone else's money and I cant pay it back then just how does that profit them?
Well, to cut a long story short, this genius has devised a plan (not for free I might add) to get you out of debt, and a way to stop the "evil" credit card companies from calling you.

Why not just pay what you rightfully owe? Oh that's right, you cant because you don't have any money.

Personal responsibility. We seem to be missing that in our country these days. I remember amassing quite a large debt with a certain credit card company in my early twenties, but I don't seem to remember an "evil agent" from Visa putting a gun in my back, forcing me to spend money. Oh no, I did that all by myself. Because we are all taught that having debt is normal right? One needs to "build your credit" when you are young so you can take on more debt when you are much older. Spend now so you can be more in debt later - got it.
And why have a savings account for a rainy day - isn't that what a credit card is for? Yes, of course, because borrowing more money when you are flat broke is always a good idea. Especially at a 21% APR.

These days, normal is broke, or only 4 weeks away from it.

I'm proud to say that we (Marci and I) are free of all debt, but our home. You read that right, no car payment, credit cards, student loans - nothing. Why, because we got sick and tired of owing everyone else money. It took 3 years of hard work. Marci (a.k.a Minister of Finances) wrote out the last check for someone else, last year. I cant tell you how liberating this experience was. I firmly believe that one of the reasons we have a great marriage is because we are not under the stress of debt anymore. You should try it.




Sean.

New day

Ok.
So a few words on today's inauguration. Call it historic, "full of change" significant, touching, whatever. If it didn't remind you at least once somewhere deep in your soul that this is truly the greatest country in the world, and that we are truly blessed, you must have a heart of stone.

Whatever side of the fence you fall on, God Bless America, and may God bless our new President.

Lord knows he is going to need it.

S.

Cutting Boards

Sean and I have gone through about 3 wooden cutting boards in our 4 1/2 years of marriage. Apparently an owner of a cutting is supposed to treat a wooden cutting board with utmost care (ie. rub with mineral oil, wash properly, store in upright position), and apparently we are completely clueless. Our boards tend to warp and split apart, so we toss it out and purchase another one. On a stroll through the mall today, while sipping Starbucks, we ventured into Williams-Sonoma. With the intent to simply browse, we came upon the cutting board section. Then Jen, the very knowledgeable sales woman, joined us. After a little lesson on cutting boards, we purchased a not-so-cheap cutting board from said sales woman. Turns out it's the very low maintenance sort of cutting board - knife friendly, composite material, dishwasher safe - my kind of equipment. As I type this Sean is raising a racket in the kitchen as he tries to properly store the new board. I did a quick search on the care of cutting boards and came upon this site. I liked it first for the name "Men In Aprons," and secondly for the information. For your own education, have a look. Maybe you too need to know how to properly care for your cutting board.

http://www.meninaprons.net/archives/2007/04/3_keys_to_wooden_cutting_board.html

Man (I mean..) "hobby room" complete

I have almost completed construction of our "hobby room." I have to call it this since "man room" is not politically correct around my, I mean "our" house.

For years I have dreamed of this. A room where I can record music, set up my gear and leave it out, have some space to move around. No more practice in the cold, lonely basement, or dragging my amp up and down the stairs, ugh.

I think that poor Marci has dreamed of this too, a room where she can close the door on all of my junk without having to step over miles of cables and guitar stuff. At least now our nice study downstairs will stay that way - "nice." She can use this room for all of her scrapbooking as well.

Is it weird that we now essentially have 2 rooms with full scale desk's and whatnot in our home?
At first I was bothered by this, but then I realized that I could care less what people think.
There's only two of us in this big four bedroom home, we might as well use it all.

Here are the pics. We still need to paint, but you get the idea.

Welcome, Welcome

Just a quick blog to officially welcome the new MacBook into the Steele Family.

Hello little Mac, we are glad you are here. Hopefully you will give much better performance than your retarded cousin, - my work PC.




Sean.

Happy things

The top 10 things that have made me happy this past week. (Other than being married to an awesome woman)

1. Coming home to a house of 5 lovely ladies in Pajamas. (See previous post below)
2. Finally got the home studio set up. No more dragging amps, guitars, cords and junk up and down the stairs to practice.
3. Wife suggests, and even encourages me to order a new Macbook.
4. New Macbook arriving tomorrow.
5. Have discovered that Starbucks is actually capable of making a decent cup of coffee - It's called the "americano" Give it a try.
6. Starbucks name has been redeemed to its original form, "Charrbucks" no longer required.
7. Twitter app for Iphone. Lets me keep in touch with the other 2.7 people that are somehow interested for no apparent reason, in my life.
8. American Idol is back - " let my pipple gooo" (see American Idol 2007 for reference)
9. Central heat.
10. Grandma Utz potato chips. Mmmhmmm.

that's it.

Sean.

Roommates

A house full of ladies. PJs. Glasses of wine. Mexican food. Laughter. Shopping. A lot of talking. Snacks. More talking. Laughter again. This describes this past weekend with my college roommates. It has been a few years since the 5 of us were together and finally we managed to pin down a weekend to do it again. The gals came to Lancaster this time. One by train from New York. Another from DC and one more from Virginia. Two of us live here, so the group was complete. It's funny how we don't see each other all that often, and yet we just pick up where we left off and it's the way it always has been. I wish the weekend could have lasted longer because we truly had a lovely time. I love you girls! And Sean thanks you for the Captain. He thought that was a nice touch.

Due to my inability to take proper pictures, I'm using the ones Kristin sent to me. Thanks, Kris!
Photo Link

Happy New Year

This year we got a little fancy in our celebration. Our friends invited us to a New Year's Eve party at Stout's Brewery. Dressed up a bit, we started out the evening with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres and followed up that with a delicious lobster and steak dinner. We danced a bit and finally called it a night after counting down to 2009. We had a fun evening and now look forward to what this new year holds for us. Enjoy some silly photos of our evening with friends. Link